Oh right.

Every time I start thinking Reno is a real sort of semi-metropolitan, cosmopolitan-sophisticated type of city, someone pops up to remind me, oh right, THIS is Reno.

A couple of weeks ago a coworker and I were dropping a work truck off at a dealer repair place. We chatted about where to have lunch as we waited for the paperwork or whatever, and as always I proposed going to a Vietnamese restaurant. The receptionist looked at me wide-eyed and said "Vietnamese?"

"Um, yeah, it's really good. I eat it all the time. Pho 777 is the best, but we might go try this new place--"

"Do they cook, you know, weird stuff?"

"Well, you know, they cook noodles and rice and beef and pork."

"I mean, you know, [stage whisper] LIKE CATS AND STUFF?"

Oh right. This is Reno.

Later she asked me, "Have you tried...SUSHI?"

Wow. Yes.

Reno 911

So there's a serial rapist/killer gadding about my neighborhood these days, and I am not one bit happy about it. It's not that this guy's a particularly fearsome serial rapist/killer, it's that Reno's police department seems to really not have its shit together. At all. I already knew this before people started going missing, ever since my friend's house got broken into and robbed and the police refused to even come out to see the crime scene. She talked to her neighbors and found several eyewitnesses who could describe the burglars; the cops didn't care. Then she actually tracked the perps (PERPS!) down and called the police and told them where they could find said perps, and the cops said they couldn't do anything about it. Apparently it's not a crime if a) the cops don't actually happen upon the crime in progress and b) you live in a working-class, ethnically diverse part of town.

Turns out another woman's house in my friend's neighborhood got robbed the same day, with the same non-response from the fine people at Reno 911. It could be a coincidence that the only two single women living alone in the neighborhood were the ones whose houses got broken into. It could also be a coincidence that the neighbor's break-in happened not long after someone broke into her house and assaulted her. Exactly like what the serial rapist/killer did to one of his victims: returning a month after the rape to try to break into her house. Surely it's a coincidence, though. Oh well, guess we'll never know, since breaking and entering apparently isn't a crime unless you live in Arrow Creek.

It is such a relief to know the cops are hot on the trail of the serial rapist/killer. It only took them TWO WEEKS to figure out that the DNA from the Brianna Denison abduction site matched DNA from a kidnapping/rape and an attempted kidnapping/rape within a couple of blocks of there, and within a couple of months of each other. TWO WEEKS. I know DNA analysis can be relatively slow, but it damn well doesn't take TWO WEEKS. Then they announced it all proud, like "look how CSI we are! It only took us two weeks to look at the most obvious possible thing we could have looked at! I'm sure Brianna is still alive and awaiting rescue--after all, most serial killers just hang out and play Parcheesi with their victims for a month or so before getting down to the business of killing! We'll nab this maroon! You betcher boots, buster brown! Sorry, can't come dust for prints or check for DNA at your home invasion in the Hispanic neighborhood--too busy talking like 1940s movie detectives over here!"

It gets better. Apparently there was a big backlog of DNA samples from all kinds of crimes that had never even been analyzed, so for all we know dozens of samples matched those from the Denison scene. Granted, this wasn't due to police laziness--it was mostly because of insufficient funding from the city or the county or the state or whomever funds that kind of thing. But it took the highly publicized abduction of a pretty young white woman for the cops to even publicly admit this backlog existed. When they did, donations poured in from the community, of course, more than enough to analyze the whole damn backlog and then some. How long would those samples have sat there otherwise? Forever, I guess. I have to wonder how many cases of rapes and murders committed against non-white, working-class people have gone unprosecuted because the lab tests hadn't been done, or the police hadn't done their jobs in the first place. All those people don't count, anyway. They should know better than to get raped and murdered and stuff.

ANYway, now a young woman is dead and if you don't want to be next I suggest you buy a gun or a big bitey dog. All those pit bulls at the Humane Society are starting to look better to me.

Grammar Is a Cruel Mistress, John Edwards

Folks around here are starting to get excited about the HISTORIC NEVADA CAUCUS! Actually, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I know I'm excited. Mostly I'm excited because it's such a weird old-timey way of participating in the democratic process. No voting machines here! Just wait for the jug band to start playing, then walk toward your chosen candidate's gang. The band will play faster and faster, and when it stops, if you aren't in a gang, you get tarred and feathered. Yeee-haw! I kind of feel like the experience won't be complete unless there's a spelling bee or a recitation from Pilgrim's Progress. Shall I bring my own corn-shucker, or will one be provided for me? Shall I wear my straw boater and best striped woolen swimming cos-tume to the caucusery? I think I shall!

Last night I did my civic duty of watching the debate of the NBC-chosen candidates (no Kucinich, of course--not GE-friendly) with a couple of friends. Mostly we made fun of Tim Russert for asking stupid questions that had nothing to do with policy or platform or anything other than "Dood, I heard she totally said this thing about you, and I was like, what? So, seriously, like, what's your response? To that thing I heard she said?" But I was actually hoping to find out something--anything--about concrete proposals for change as opposed to soundbites about how much so-and-so loves freedom or families or God, so I paid attention and listened with all of my ears. This is what cost John Edwards my vote.

The candidates were good about pronouncing "Nevada" correctly, and they all seem well-educated, so they clearly have some awareness of proper word usage. But at some point Edwards said "I was literally fighting for my life" (or something, I think he was fighting for health insurance or something, but he for sure said he was "literally fighting"). Oh really, John Edwards? Did you LITERALLY fight? Did you engage in fisticuffs? No? Really? No wrestling or anything? No chest-bumping? Didn't literally fight? Then you can't use "literally"! You FIGURATIVELY fought! It's the OPPOSITE of literally! God damn it, America, have my constant complaints about the misuse of "literally" fallen on deaf ears all the way to Washington?

Okay, I wasn't really going to caucus for Edwards, but he double-lost my vote with his stupid literal fighting. I in fact plan on caucusing for my main man Dennis Kucinich--me and the other two ancient hippies living in my rich-ass precinct--which I guess means I'll make my totally futile symbolic stand for my non-viable candidate and then people who like Clinton and Obama will yell words at me until I close my eyes and pick one. God bless America.

You know who I wish was president? MORGAN FREEMAN.

STORM OF THE CENTURY!